one finger on the trigger
by onecupoftae
Summary: Being a secret agent is nothing like the movies. Jimin finds himself swallowing down his feelings with a glass of alcohol more often than not and Yoongi can't seem to hold onto a reason to keep fighting. Maybe they just want it all to end. Maybe they're both just a little more than ready for a bullet to the head. — Yoonmin.


**Summary:** Being a secret agent is nothing like the movies. Jimin finds himself swallowing down his feelings with a glass of alcohol more often than not and Yoongi can't seem to hold onto a reason to keep fighting. Maybe they just want it all to end. Maybe they're both just a little more than ready for a bullet to the head. — Yoonmin.

 **a/n:** if you're just here for the story: skip this. read on.

if you follow me as an author: i'm sorry for being absent for so long. this school year has left me with barely any time to write and it sucks to admit that i've sort of fallen out of love with bts. i don't follow any of their updates anymore and i've only ever liked a few of their songs so this is to be expected, really. i still read fics from authors i follow here but that's about as far as it goes with me and bts content.

i mostly write stories for other fandoms under a different account which is why i'm not as active here anymore. that being said, i will still occasionally upload a bts fic every now and then so it's not like i'm leaving completely. i hope you'll still stick around.

* * *

One Finger on the Trigger

* * *

Death is one of the cruelest aspects of human existence, Jimin thinks.

It's the single bullet that punctures your partner's heart, quick and fatal, impossible to dodge. It's the hot, red liquid that flows and flows and won't stop flowing until your best friend falls to the ground in the middle of a puddle of his own blood. You drop down beside him and call his name but the voice that would normally respond to you is already gone.

Because you may still be alive—but at what cost? At what _cost_?

Taehyung is dead. He is dead, and he's left Jimin behind.

.

In his line of work, Jimin is not allowed any time to mourn. A dead agent is a forgotten one, expected to be pushed to the back of his mind for him to continue as he always does, to move on without a glitch in his performance. Turn off his feelings and don't look back.

He's assigned a new partner almost immediately and it feels a little too much like they're saying, _look. Look at how replaceable you secret agents are._ The truth is that they're not _expected_ to live long, and so there's always back-up available at all times. It's more than a little bit fucked up, if you ask Jimin.

With dark hair and even darker eyes, twenty-seven-year-old Min Yoongi is a weapons specialist who has a gaze hardened in steel. He stands, chin poised, like he could either knock a person out or flee at a moment's notice. The aura that rolls off his skin is intimidating and entirely too unsettling, both attributes found in only the most seasoned of agents.

There are shadows left by death's kisses on the contours of his face and chains of heavy metal balls wrapped around his feet that clang when he walks and Jimin blinks at the familiar sight because he's seen all this reflected in his own image far too many times.

They are exactly the same, he realizes, sucked dry by a wicked system that governs their every action.

"Park Jimin," Yoongi greets him with an outstretched hand.

Jimin extends his own arm and they shake to their newly formed alliance. "Nice to meet you," he replies, and just like that, they've sealed their fates, placed their lives on each other's shoulders like an offering to the Reaper himself.

When Yoongi smiles at him, it's more of a grimace of forced pleasantries than anything else.

Jimin returns it with a smile of his own, the corners of his lips curling upward with practiced ease, and they walk off like that together, both broken beyond repair but neither of them acknowledging it.

.

"Do you know what the deadliest weapon is?" Yoongi twirls a small dagger in between his fingers as he leads Jimin to their equipment room. Along the walls, there are knives and spears, electric rods and whips, all perfectly aligned in their own designated slots.

Jimin reaches out to trace the outline of a sharp blade. "All weapons can be deadly if you know how to use them. That's why we're trained to be versatile in everything."

"Right," Yoongi says. "But knives are only good for close-combat and whips can be compromised too easily because once the enemy gets a hold of it, you're done for." He walks over to the back wall and grabs a weapon in his hands. "Guns, though, are quick and sharp. Even the bullet of a standard pistol travels at 1700 miles per hour." The grin that spreads over his face is almost malicious. "And I trust that neither of us will miss."

The younger man grins back. "Of course."

They move over to the practice room, where rows of human-shaped targets are lined up at increasing intervals of distance away from the firing zone. Yoong inserts ammunition into the magazine of his gun and unclips the safety switch, arm raised straight at one of the targets. Then he fires three clean shots in succession, barely even looking in front of him: one through the pelvic region, one through the heart, and one through the head. All lethal hits.

Jimin loads his own gun in the same way, but instead of pointing the muzzle at a target, he holds it out in Yoongi's direction. His expression is blank but there are sparks of excitement in his eyes and adrenaline vibrating off his skin, silently taunting his partner. _Come at me_ , Jimin challenges.

The older man simply arches an eyebrow in questioning. Without warning, Yoongi moves swiftly to grab Jimin's wrist, twisting his arm so that the gun is pointed away from him, and grabs the head of the pistol with his other hand before throwing the weapon on the floor. It lands with an echoing _clang_.

Narrowing his eyes, Jimin kicks a foot upward and aims for Yoongi's shoulder joint. This gets Yoongi to release his grip on Jimin's arm as he stumbles back a couple of steps and Jimin takes this chance to flip Yoongi over, drawing out a knife from inside his jacket and holding it under Yoongi's chin. Because the most important rule of equipment training is to always be armed with more than one weapon.

They're both quiet for a few moments, only the sound of their laboured breaths filling the room. Then Yoongi laughs, and it sounds like he's saying, _Go ahead. Slice my throat._

It sounds like a hollow thing.

.

Kim Namjoon, their superior, slams a file of documents on the desk in front of them, the slightest hint of panic in his eyes. He's called them to report to his office _now_ and they stand alert, ready for their orders.

"This is the case that Jeon Jungkook and his team from Division Nine took on earlier this week. We haven't heard back from them in five days." He pauses to look both Jimin and Yoongi in the eyes. "Read it. Familiarize yourselves with it. Then grab your equipment and head over there as soon as possible, and bring our agents back."

Jimin picks up the folder and they both bow. "Yes, sir."

Once they're out in the hallway with Namjoon's office door closed behind them, the two of them split up. Yoongi heads off in the direction of the weapons room while Jimin quickly skims through Jungkook's file as he makes his way to the entrance of the building. When Yoongi arrives, he throws a gun and a knife at Jimin, who catches them effortlessly before clipping them to his belt.

They run a whole five blocks down the street and Jimin uses this time to briefly go over the contents of Jungkook's mission with Yoongi. When they step onto enemy grounds, they are almost immediately attacked, an ambush coming from the left side.

Yoongi's reflexes are quick as he side-steps to avoid a punch and moves around his opponent to knock him out from the back. The rest of the hallway is oddly silent as they move through the building, checking each room to see if there are any signs of Jungkook's team.

The emptiness of the place makes it feel as if everyone had abandoned it and when they reach the end of the hall, they find out why. There's a group of people gathered here, a circle of bodies formed around three chairs in the middle. Jungkook and his team are tied to the seats.

Jimin and Yoongi stand outside, peeking in from the doorway.

"This is your last chance," a tall man says, his voice holding back a snarl. He's presumably the authority figure, the enemy's leader. "Speak, and we'll let you go. Remain silent, and you will _all_ die."

Jimin exchanges a panicked look with Yoongi during the long stretch of silence that spans across the room as Jungkook is given time to make his decision. But before they can decide what their next action will be, the man speaks up again; Jungkook has delayed for too long and with a flick of his wrist, he orders his followers, "Kill them."

" _No!"_ Jimin runs in before he can even realize what he's doing. In front of him, he watches in horror as three bodies go limp in their chairs, throats cut open and blood oozing.

There's a moment of shocked stillness from both sides and then it's all open fire. He doesn't know at what point Yoongi came in and joined him, but they fight back-to-back until everyone else in the room is either beaten or has retreated.

Looking at Jungkook, now lifeless, he notices just how young the other agent was. Beneath the scars that create constellations on his skin and the fresh injuries no doubt caused by various methods of torture in attempt to break him, agent Jeon Jungkook was still just a boy.

Jimin clenches his hand into a fist and bangs it against the wall.

Here's the thing about being just a second too late: it's the crushing weight of guilt that slams down on you all at once when you go back and report to your superior that you've failed. It's the moment that replays over and over again in your head when you're in bed trying to fall asleep. It's what gives you a nasty cut across your back and a bruise on your partner's left eye; the falter in your step when you get sent on your next mission, too soon, and wanting to never step back into the field again.

Here's the thing about being just a second too late: it's what makes you hate yourself to the point where you want to die.

.

"You know that too much alcohol is bad for you, right?" Yoongi walks in on Jimin sitting alone at a coffee table, drowning himself glass after glass. "You're going to fuck up your liver at this rate."

Jimin hardly even looks up at him, swallowing a large gulp before answering, "Don't act like you don't go through a pack of cigarettes every day, hyung."

And Yoongi hums because, okay, that's fair. He takes a seat across from Jimin and they sit there in silence, staring at each other and nothing in particular. The two of them are shells; empty and void on the inside, just barely functioning on the outside. They drink and smoke to make the pain slightly more tolerable, to numb the nightmares that creep up on them in the darkness every time they close their eyes to blink.

After all, there's no glory in what they do.

.

Their next mission is simple enough: infiltrate a building. Kill Kim Seokjin. Move in, move out; preferably without being seen.

In theory, it shouldn't be hard for trained agents like them. But if everything were to go as planned, it would be far too easy, wouldn't it?

Seokjin is smart. He has spies everywhere, people who serve him by sniffing out the liars and traitors. It's not that Jimin and Yoongi were careless; Seokjin's men are just _good_ at what they do.

Now, they find themselves captured in the hands of the enemy, cornered and trapped. They are being held at gunpoint in a small room with Seokjin himself, who growls at them. "I ask you once again: who sent you?"

Yoongi spits in his direction. "Fuck off."

Seokjin grabs a fistful of Yoongi's hair and lowers himself to meet him at eye-level. "How about I fuck up your pretty little face instead, hmm?" There's bloodlust in his voice mixed in with the sadistic pleasure dancing in his eyes. "How about I make you watch as I hurt your partner over there?"

Jimin fights against his restraints as Yoongi draws in a sharp breath, but otherwise remains quiet.

This causes Seokjin to bark out a laugh. "That got you to shut up, huh? Now, why don't you tell me—"

An explosion from out in the hallway cuts off Seokjin's words and he finally releases his hold on Yoongi to look up. Sending one last menacing glare in their direction, Seokjin runs off to check on the new disturbance.

"You okay?" Jimin asks once Seokjin is gone. Yoongi's shoulder is shaking ever-so-slightly.

"Yeah, I just… the memories…" He shakes his head as if to chase away the bad thoughts. "My previous partner, Jung Hoseok. He was extraordinarily stealthy; you couldn't catch him if he didn't want you to. And he never did end up getting caught, but—I did. The last mission we went on together," Yoongi exhales, sombre and _vulnerable_ , "I was captured, and he came back for me. And got killed because of it." _Because of me._

And Jimin's heard enough of these stories to know that this is how they end, more often than not: in blood and loss and traumas devastating enough to last a lifetime.

"I was forced to watch Hoseok get cut and stabbed over and over again," Yoongi continues. "They—they had _fun_ killing him. It was sick."

Jimin nods, understanding. "Before you, I was paired up with agent Kim Taehyung. We were supposed to take back some documents that some other people had stolen from us, valuable information and whatnot. And we retrieved it too. The mission was successful. But on our way back, we were being shot at and they were mostly aiming for me because I was the one holding the files." He pauses and shuts his eyes, images of red flashing unwelcomed in his mind. In a whisper, he says, "Taehyung was shot instead; he literally took a bullet for me."

The one thing they have in common: through it all, dead or alive, they're all made up of tragedies.

"Maybe," Yoongi murmurs, "this will be the end of it all."

 _Maybe, when Seokjin comes back, we won't have to suffer anymore._

Jimin doesn't even get a chance to entertain the implications of that idea in his head before familiar faces burst through the door, reinforcements sent by Namjoon to help them escape. The new team of agents move swiftly, releasing the restraints on Jimin and Yoongi while giving them brief updates on the situation outside. They pick up their weapons that had been tossed aside earlier and instantly feel safer with the accustomed weight back in their hands.

As they walk out, Jimin looks over at his partner. Yoongi's face is concealed and expressionless, but he wonders if the older man is even just a little bit disappointed, like he is, that Seokjin didn't get to them first. Perhaps they were just unlucky.

(And when, exactly, had he started associating luck with taking a bullet to the head?)

.

"Do you ever wonder," Jimin asks one day, "what it would be like to not be agents? To be normal?"

They're both lying on the floor of the training room, exhausted after an extensive round of sparring and gasping for breath. Yoongi turns his head to look at his partner. "What's even considered normal?"

"I don't know, like if we had met in a public high school or something." He sighs longingly. "Or if we had steady office jobs calculating balance sheets for a living or some shit. Maybe we'll eventually be reborn as proper citizens of society, working the nine-to-five shift. I think I'd like that."

Yoongi laughs, and it's full of bitterness and melancholy. "People like us don't get redemption, Jimin."

"… Yeah." And he knows. He _knows_. "I just—hope that Taehyung is living a better life out there, somewhere."

"Ah. Your last partner."

Jimin nods. "He was my best friend."

Yoongi rolls over on his side so that he's facing Jimin. He studies the younger man's body, takes in the holes carved by loss eating away at Jimin's flesh, and knows that this path will only lead to self-destruction. He wants to pick up the pieces of Jimin—or whatever remains—and seal him in a tight jar to protect him from the reality of their jobs. From himself.

Instead, Yoongi reaches over and clasps his hands around Jimin's in offering, even though he himself has nothing left to give.

That night, they go out for drinks. "I want to forget," Jimin raises a toast to the shitty world they live in and hopes that the alcohol will burn his insides all the way through.

.

In the next couple of months, they get sent on missions that all blur together. Assassinations, interrogations, gathering intelligence—in the end, it just comes down to losing your humanity one drop of blood at a time.

Jimin wonders if this is truly everything life has to offer.

.

The gun is the deadliest weapon, Yoongi had once said. It kills people, it makes people kill other people, it punctures lungs and draws blood and when someone you know bleeds out from a bullet wound, it kills a part of you, too.

Jimin and Yoongi both hold a gun in their hands, loaded and aimed at each other. Imagine the feeling of metal driving a hole into their bodies, fast and unstoppable.

They lower their weapons. Give the guns a spin. Inhale.

Slowly, their arms go up again, finger resting on the trigger. The muzzle pointed at their own heads.

Jimin's heart beats to a steady _thump, thump, thump_ rhythm and he sees a true, genuine smile stretch across Yoongi's lips for the first time. They look soft, he thinks, and then— _oh. I won't ever get to kiss him._ It's an unexpected revelation that crosses his mind in the moment. A single regret.

Death is one of the cruelest aspects of human existence, Jimin knows this with a certainty that's etched into his very soul. But it is also relief. Freedom.

He laces his fingers between Yoongi's, and on the count of three, they both pull the trigger.

* * *

 **A/N:** am i incapable of writing happy endings? most likely.


End file.
